As Jack made it to the lift and gained access to the bridge he passed the main agricultural levels of the ship. They made careful use of hydroponic technology to grow everything from flax seed to cabbage to lettuce and strawberries. The only thing they couldn’t keep on board were animals and livestock. Pigs and cows tended not to like hypersleep too much. Because of the ship’s lack of meat other dietary choices had to be manufactured or made. Everyone on board was forced to eat a purely vegetarian diet. Scientist by this time had found a way to “bend” plant proteins in such a way that they could mimic meat, or milk, or just about anything that one could desire, but to Jack it just didn’t taste the same. The agricultural portions of the ship were also home to an arboretum of sorts. These were, effectively, the lungs of the ship. Of course they had CO2 scrubbers, but the air just wasn’t as fresh without the trees and other plants on the arboretum deck providing fresh air and not just processed air to the ship.

Unlike some of the ships before her, Proteus was NOT a generational ship. With the advent of hypersleep technology crews could survive the many years it took to get to some destinations. Prior to his going into hypersleep there was a lot of theoretical talk about ships using wormholes to travel from place to place and even some speculated that there was a whole wormhole system created by some ancient race of beings. Man had yet to make first contact with any alien race whatsoever at least by the time he left that was the case.

Finally, he was there. The sleeper region of the ship was approximately halfway along the ship’s length. He had to pass 64 decks to get to the bridge. When he entered he saw her.

Suspended in a light blue been about 4 feet across, there she was… sleeping like the rest of the crew only this person was not really a person. She was the ship’s avatar, a hologram. The personification of the ship’s internal systems. She provided an interface to the ship. Floating, placidly, eyes closed… her short, but dark black hair lightly touched her shoulders. As Captain, Jack was given a wide latitude as to what the ship’s avatar would look like since it was, likely, him who would be working with her most often. He chose the image of his late daughter. Her death was what drove him into space again. Her name was Serena as had been his daughter’s.

Jack had been into deep space once before on one of the old Orion class starships. Those ships incurred relativistic time dilation. The life of a jammer was a lonely one. After his last voyage he met his wife, Evania, and vowed to never leave for deep space again. He became a freighter pilot. His wife was never at ease with space travel. His daughter Serena, his only child, was precious to him as any child is precious to their parents. He had a special bond with her. She was talented and bright. He could remember so many things about her… but especially how she had a talent for smiling at him and getting whatever she wanted. This is a power not unknown to daughters everywhere on the planet.

He watched her grow into a young woman and remembered being proud of her every accomplishment. From her graduation of high school, her awards, her virtuosity at playing music or drawing or painting or whatever she turned her hand to. He began to understand that raising your kids is the easy part, it’s letting them go that’s hard.

The night it happened was a night he will never forget. She was on her way home from a party with a friend. Their vehicle was struck by another that had been running from the authorities… Jack punished himself for not remember the reason the kid in the other car was speeding or even his name. She had lived for several hours after in the hospital, bleeding internally… the doctors could do nothing. Jack and his wife rushed to her side… her deep brown eyes could only stare back at him as he looked at her helplessly… “Do something!”... he cried. “It’s okay, Dad.” she whispered. He cried… knowing she was dying right in front of him. Her eyes slowly closed and her grip on his hand weakened… “No!” he screamed, the doctor’s pushing him out of the room while they began to work on her.

Twenty minutes later the doctor came out and announced to both of them that she was gone. She had simply suffered too many internal injuries as a result of the crash. His legs weakened unable to support his weight any longer. He fell, involuntarily, to his knees and as the pain of the impact of them against the floor reached his brain the first tears dropped from his face and hit the sterile floor of the hospital.

The pain of that night was only the beginning. There came the trial of the young man responsible for her death and her friend’s injuries. He had to relive the moments of his daughter’s death over… and over… and over until it became numb in his mind. The trauma of having to do that and the pain and the obsession of getting the man convicted drove a wedge between himself and his wife. In the end, he was acquitted, in spite of every effort… first offense, they said, he had made a deal with the prosecutor for probation in lieu of jail time. Criminal punishment had become lax on Earth because of overpopulation problems. The public simply couldn’t afford to keep criminals alive in prisons so there ended up being one of two extremes: the death penalty or probation, even for things like murder or manslaughter.

Jack decided to take the law into his own hands. It took some time, but he finally found him and cornered him and beat him senseless, with each blow he felt the anger grow. Each punch more powerful than the last. His knuckles bled and tears rolled down his face. Finally, blood dripping from his knuckles, tears dripping from his face Jack spared his life… better than he had done for Serena. Jack finally came to the realization that, even though this young man had killed his daughter that he too was living with the weight of her death too. He saw her face every day. Jack spared him because he wanted to remember his daughter… not the face of the man who killed her and, in the end, it’s better to let him live with his torture than to kill him. A prolonged death is far less merciful than a quick one. Sometimes… living is worse.

As much as Jack loved his wife he knew there was nothing left for him here on Earth anymore. He asked and even begged his wife to come with him, but she refused. The revulsion he felt for Earth and the disdain he had for humanity after the death of his daughter had grown too strong. He had to leave… he didn’t want to, but he knew he had to go even though he promised he never would.

Next Chapter: Dis